Rising Sun
by Sparrow-senpai
Summary: Sequel to The Sun Always Sets, Even in Paradise. It's been several days since the scenario with Lucy and Levy and Ji refuses to leave them in their current state. Now, she and Starlight must go find an ex-wizard and convince him to help her save her two friends. However, is there more to this story than they imagined?
1. Research

**Rising Sun**

Chapter 1: Research

"I'm not finding anything." The little girl mumbles, frustrated as she pushes the book in its proper place.

"Well, you're not going to find it if you're just sitting there and complaining." A noncholant voice shot back from the other side of the library. "Plus, it would help if you looking in the… I don't know… resources area."

The girl looks at the sign above her and as clear as day, it read 'Fiction'. She hopped of the moving ladder that she was using as a chair and made her way toward the resources area. There, she saw her friend, her head tilted sideways as she read the book titles.

"You could have said something Starlight. I was in the fiction area for 2 hours!" The little girl complained.

"Ji, I'm looking through books. I just happened to glance up and see you at the fiction area." The girl named Starlight replied, stressfully combing her snow white hair. "This is taking a lot longer than it should. I'll try using the lacrima over there." She says as she walked over to the lacrima.

"This is going to help us how?" Ji asked looking over Starlight's shoulder.

"You can look up the location of a book using this." She replied as she typed in the phrase 'Toven Village People'.

As soon as she hit the enter key, few results popped up.

"Check for books with the numbers 177.5 to 179." She ordered.

'Why are we looking for a book of names if we don't have the man's name?' She asked herself, watching her friend make her way to the shelf containing the books.

As they looked on the shelves, majority of the books were biographies and autobiographies. They kept searching until they both found an old book. It was a brown, clean book, as if people rarely used it.

"Toven Village Inhabitants" Ji read the spine of the book.

As Starlight scanned through the alphabetical list, a certain event that happened just a few days ago comes to mind.

 _Starlight and Ji just entered a small village after receiving information about a person that could help them. However, all the informant knew was that the person was a man in his early 20s and that he lived here._

" _It's getting dark." She deadpanned, secretly regretting coming here with very little information._

" _Oh… Ok. Let's look for an inn." The smaller girl replied._

 _After several minutes of retracing their steps and eventually being forced to ask for directions, they made it to the inn. It was a small, well kept inn. After they successfully rented out a room, Ji placed her backpack, filled with pens, paper, and water bottles, on her bed and Starlight leaned the fishing pole she had against the nearest corner. Afterwards, they decided to play a game of war in the lobby where the table was larger. As they played, they could feel the owner staring at them._

" _Umm… Would you like to join us?" Ji asks weakly, feeling uncomfortable with the lady's stare._

 _The lady nodded and pulled up a chair to the end of the table. That way, Starlight, who was in her exceed-like form, and Ji were both on the opposite sides of the table and the lady was at one end. As Starlight gathered and shuffled the cards, Ji could feel the lady staring at her again._

" _Are you okay miss?" She asked._

" _Oh! Yes, yes. I am fine, t-thank you. I-I mean, sorry for staring. I must have made you feel really uncomfortable" She stammered, feeling embarrassed about the staring. "It's just, you just remind me of little Christy." She smiled before turning to Starlight._

" _And you, you look a lot the cat she had. What was her name… Ah yes! It was Starlight. I remember because it wasn't a regular name like Sally or Shayla." Starlight's eyes widened as she her name but she didn't say anything. "However, both have been missing for several years now." She said sadly, looking at the ground._

" _Were they kidnapped?" Ji asked, looking up at Starlight rather than the lady._

" _No… We don't think that's what happened to them." The lady muttered more to herself than to Ji._

Oddly enough, no one in the town had such a name.

'It must be a nickname. Christy sounds a lot like Christina when I think about it.' She combed through her hair as she looked for people with the name Christina Keys. It didn't take her long to find it. She flips to the specified page. Sure enough, there was one page dedicated to the said name and on the page was a picture. A picture of a very familiar person, only slightly younger.

"Ji?"

 **Author's Note:**

 **And here starts the sequel of my last story ^.^ I hope it's been interesting so far.**

 **11/13/16 I made several edits to it, which makes me so happy because I can hardly read through my stories without cringing (even if it's good).**

 **Review, favorite, follow**

 **Sparrow-senpai out~**


	2. Help?

**Rising Sun**

Chapter 2: Help?

"I look so embarrassing." Ji pouts after Starlight showed her the picture. They decided to check out the book and take it with them to their room and read it on the small couch.

Starlight doesn't comment and continues to read the information.

"Your records haven't been updated for years now but I find it strange that your father and mother died on the same day."

"Oh…" Ji didn't really know how to respond to that. She didn't even know how to feel about that. She feels sad and distraught but strangely enough, she feels as if it was none of her business.

'I've been gone for several years and I hardly remember anything about my parents.' She thought, disappointed in herself until she felt a paw on her arm.

"Ummm… Well… I'm not the best at comforting people but I at least your brother is alive." Starlight said awkwardly, not exactly sure what to say.

"Brother?" Ji tilts her head sideways.

"His name is Chris Keys." The little girl's eye twitched with annoyance, hearing the similarity of his and her name but Starlight continued, not noticing the girl's reaction. "He's 5 years older than you apparently.

"So, if I'm 11, that makes him 16."

"You're 11?"

"Yeah…?"

"When I first met you, Lucy, and Levy, you looked you were about 8 or 9 years old."

"I'm not that short!" She protested before calming down. "Can you flip to the page about my brother?"

Starlight flipped back a page and they both skimmed over the information about her brother.

"Starlight look! He's a mage! Maybe he can help us!" Ji shouts excitedly, pulling her cat into a suffocating hug.

"T-that's great." Starlight huffed out. "We just need to find him."

Ji lets go of Starlight and grabbed the book. "We can use this picture to find him."

"I don't know Ji." Starlight brushes off imaginary dust from her fur. "You're picture hasn't been updated in a while. What makes you think his picture is up to date?"

"Well, it's the only reference we have as of right now. We need to use it at our advantage."

"Also, now that you know you're real name, what would you like me to refer you by?"

Ji puts a finger on her cheek as she thought. "As far as I know, everyone who knows me personally, excluding my brother, calls me Ji so I guess I can be called Christina when filling out papers or during fancy meetings and stuff like that."

"Very well." Starlight shrugs. "Now to find your brother-"

Starlight was cut off when the librarian ran in, slammed and locked the huge double doors.

"I'm sorry if I may have spooked the two of you but this is for your safety." He spoke quickly, rushing to check that all the windows were locked.

"What's going on?" Ji asks, her voice instinctively getting softer.

After the man checked the all the windows he made his way back to them. "It's the Fletchers." He whispered.

 **Author's Note:**

 **And I'm back after an extremely long hiatus. I've just been very busy with my first year of high school which has been very fun so far. Busy but fun. I'll try to update more of my stories just to let you know that they will not be tossed out. Well, I'm not sure about Heartfilia Empire though. I personally thought I did a bad job writing that one since the characters are extremely OOC. It depends on whether people actually like it or not but other than that, stories will be updated. Yay!**

 **Review, favorite, follow**

 **Sparrow-senpai out~**


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